The Weekly: 01 May 2013
Highlights
Bitcoin accepted outside the net, Google buys natural language app, telescope is better than telephoto lens, plants glow, COD coming soon, external camera lighting sensor, donate your calories
Bitcoin Coming to the Real World
German businesses start accepting Bitcoin. Scan a QR code and you're done. PayPal considering accepting them too. I can understand why Europeans begin adapting Bitcoins first, with Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain falling victim to the recent economic crisis caused primarily by reckless financial institutions.
Score One for decentralized currencies!
Google Buys Wavii
Wavii holds the key for Google to implement Natural Language to their systems, specifically Google Now. It's kind of like how Apple's Siri takes and processes natural languages rather than Google's more robotic commands. Wait... What happened to Majel?
Smartphone + Binocular = Snapzoom
It's pretty obvious, no? Mount your camera onto any looking glass and you get this ultimate-zoom capability that can take you to Jupiter. This mount is still at Kickstarter stage, but it'll probably arrive at our shores very soon.
Geeky photographers will argue refractions and what-nots, but isn't the very purpose of Instagram to reduce the quality of photographs anyway?
Glowing Plants To Replace Bulbs
They're injecting firefly DNA into plant seeds that lets us grow glowing plants. To have a plant that reduces electricity consumption while it fights for O2 intake with you every night. What's there not to like? It's a Kickstarter project worth investing in, in any case.
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Ghost from Modern Warfare? The one who died?! We'll see. Coming November 2013
Lumu the External Camera Light Sensor
This is weird. Every camera out there today have light sensors. So the only place I can find this device useful is when I use it to help me meter for my lomo camera. Which is even weirder considering I buy a RM300 device to meter for my RM 200 toy camera.
But if there are makers, there are definitely buyers for these devices.
Take Picture of Your Food For a Good Cause
Need a good excuse for snapping photos of your food? Try Give Your Calories! It lets you count your calories by taking photos of what you eat, and gets you to donate money via PayPal to Action Against Hunger. They will channel your donations to nourishing the poorer end of the world. Try it out!!!
